


Tomcat of the Catskills

by ATwistOfLemonLyman



Series: The Gods Have Conspired [18]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: (that started out as fluff but I am a monster that can't be stopped), Angst, Borscht Belt, Canon Jewish Character, F/M, Gen, Holocaust, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jewish Character, Josh's family - Freeform, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 08:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12860820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATwistOfLemonLyman/pseuds/ATwistOfLemonLyman
Summary: Sorting through memories after a funeral.





	1. The Photograph

**Connecticut**

**2015**

* * *

 

   Years of heavy smoking had finally caught up to Felix Strauss and that was why his only surviving relatives were sorting through his things the night after the funeral. His illness had been long but, from the time of his cancer diagnosis up until the day he had died, he hadn’t wanted to take care of any of his affairs apart from making sure his will was in order, or discuss the life he had lived; if he had any secrets he was planning on taking them to his grave or letting his Cousin Ada and her son find out for themselves. There wasn’t much Felix’s family could do or say to get him to change his mind, he had always been a stubborn and secretive man and even as he was staring death in the face he refused to change.

  There was something therapeutic about tidying up Felix’s home, sorting through his things, packing up, and reminiscing. Ada was doing most of the sorting with help from her daughter-in-law while Josh sat nearby waiting to be asked to move a heavy box or to look at something his mother thought he might find interesting or amusing; both Ada and Donna thought it would be counterproductive to have Josh doing any of the organizing. They hadn’t been at their task long before Ada found something that had the potential to embarrass her son.

   “Oh, Joshua!” Ada exclaimed with a smile on her face.

  “What?” Josh asked, sitting up straight so he could see what had caught his mother's attention.

  “Is that Josh?” Donna asked as she leaned over to see the photograph in her mother-in-law’s hand.

  Ada nodded.

  “That's him alright,” she answered, her smile refusing to fade.

  “So, he's always had a thing for blondes,” Donna teased.

  “Ok, what've you got there?” Josh asked, finally getting up from where he was sitting.

  Ada turned and handed the photograph to her son.

  Josh snatched up the picture, eager to see what his mother and wife found so amusing.

   I can’t possibly be more than five in this picture, Josh thought. His younger self in the photograph had lost nearly all of his “baby fat” by then but there was still a bit clinging to his rosy cheeks.

A smiling Josh, with smudges of chocolate around his mouth and a bit on his nose, held an ice cream cone in one hand and his other hand was held securely in the hand of a young woman in a bathing suit. She was tall and lithe, she wore a floppy wide brimmed hat with blonde hair that spilled from under it it in waves (long and voluminous, much like Raquel Welch’s hair in One Million Years BC, a film which Josh supposed must have come out around that time if he was in fact five years old). The young woman also had blue eyes, and the vibrant red of her lipstick matched her bathing suit, she was smiling brightly at the camera, or perhaps the person behind the camera.

  “THAT was one of ‘Felix’s Blondes’,” Ada said.

  “Where is this?” Josh asked his mother, having no memory of either the girl or the place.

  “That place up in the Catskills we used to go to,” she replied.

  This was news to Josh.

  “We used to go to the Catskills?”

  “You probably don't remember much of it, we stopped going when you were around six. Your grandparents continued to go up from time to time for a few years though they preferred going to Florida starting around that time. Felix probably went nearly every summer for quite a few years, until all the resorts started closing. He was the ‘Tomcat of the Catskills’, that one,” Ada remembered fondly.

  Josh got that pensive look he got often on his face when something was occurring to him for the first time, his head cocked to one side, his brows raised and furrowing slightly, his jaw going a little slack; Donna liked to call it his “pensive burp face”, something Josh took great exception to.   

  “Hey, do you think that-”

  “The 'Tomcat' left any ‘kittens’ behind?” Ada said, reading her son’s mind.

  “Yeah.”

  “Not to my knowledge. Though I’m not at all sure if he would have told me if he had,” she admitted

  “If he had do you think he might have told you after Jake?” Donna asked.

  By ‘after Jake’ Donna meant how everyone had so unceremoniously found out about Jake’s existence, amid all of that turmoil. "Oh, by the way, this is Josh's son," and everyone had had to roll with it because they'd had no other choice at the moment.

  What Donna said made some sense. It didn’t seem unreasonable to think that it might have made Felix more comfortable admitting that he had left a ‘kitten’ behind as a result of one of his romps through the Borscht Belt after finding out that Josh had done virtually the same. If he had been aware of the fact that he had children somewhere out there in the world the months following Josh’s revelation would have been the time to admit it.

  “I don’t know,” Josh answered with a shrug.

 Donna had known Felix for several years before his death but she had never had to live with the enigmatic man the way Ada, and to some extent Josh, had. She had been horrified to learn from Josh of some of the things the man had gone through, things that it had taken Ada and her family years to discover.

 


	2. Matchmaker Matchmaker

**Connecticut**  


**May 1966**

* * *

 

  Miriam Lyman had finally convinced her son to have his little family join Miriam and David that summer in the place up in the Catskills they'd all frequented before Noah had gotten married. They had only gone as a family once after Joanie had been born and Miriam was eager to have the whole family go on vacation together after several years of everyone making their own plans. Now Miriam had her mind set on convincing her daughter-in-law’s cousin to join them on the trip as well.

    “Felix, I absolutely insist that you come along. A handsome man like you, you'll have no trouble finding nice girls, and who knows maybe it might lead to a more permanent arrangement,” Miriam said, emphasizing ‘permanent arrangement’ with a dramatic raise of her right eyebrow.

  Miriam considered Felix a good-looking and charming man, certainly he had his flaws but what man didn’t. Miriam was convinced that the solution for what flaws he did have would be for him to settle down. There wasn’t much to his life apart from work (and the gambling) that she knew of, along with the time spent with Noah and Ada’s children out of extreme devotion Ada's little family. Though Felix’s devotion to Ada and the children endeared him to Miriam, she was convinced that he needed a family of his own, surely that would rid him of the sadness that Miriam sometimes saw reflected in his blue eyes and perhaps soften the hard angles of his face, she thought. Being a bachelor was fine and dandy but he was nearing forty, in her opinion he'd had enough years of doing as he pleased when he pleased, it was time for family and companionship.

   Miriam had heard things about Felix taking up with Marguerite Esterhazy, a twice-divorced widow who lived in Westport. But Marguerite was older than Felix and from what Miriam knew it wasn’t serious between them, how could it be when he had been seeing her for what must have been nearly 10 years and he hadn't put a ring on her finger.

  Besides, Marguerite had been baptized Roman Catholic. Miriam had heard rumors that she had a Jewish grandmother but what did it matter to Miriam if Marguerite had a Jewish grandparent and wasn’t a practicing Catholic if she hadn’t converted back to Judaism and didn’t live a Jewish life; Miriam had nothing against Ms. Esterhazy personally but Felix needed a nice Jewish wife so that they could have nice Jewish children. Even if the woman converted, at her age and with three husbands and no children it made Miriam wonder if Felix would be able to have a family with her at all.

  Surely there would be a girl at the resort that he would take a liking to, maybe one of those college graduate girls that, years after graduation, were still unmarried; Felix would like a smart girl, Miriam thought. And Felix was quite a catch in Miriam’s eyes, apart from the good looks and charm he had a college degree and had a very good job at his uncle’s architecture firm and made good money. Any Jewish mother would be thrilled to have him as a son-in-law if he managed to curb a few of his habits, habits Miriam was certain he would abandon once he was no longer a bachelor.

  “Why not, Miriam, I think I need a change of scenery this Summer,” Felix replied.

  This was exactly what Miriam had wanted to hear.

  “Oh how wonderful, you won't regret going! You’ll have a good time and I'm sure the children will enjoy having you around. But don’t worry,” she added quickly. “There will be plenty for them to do so they won't be monopolizing your time if you want to go off and do things on your own.”

Felix could hear a wink and a nudge in her voice.


End file.
